This is my 2007 Christmas card which printed well on my new printer, which I bought after much research and guidance from my electronic-toy-junkie pal Jackie, who has a dream electronics lab. This was a good year for art stuff with acceptances in every juried show I entered and also acceptance into the Lorton Workhouse in a coop studio with AIM: Artists in Motion (wonderful artists and friends), and also in my own studio, which I will share with friend and fellow artist Susie. Looking forward to the completion of the studios and moving in in April 08. Publication in Elan magazine, including the cover, was exciting, as was meeting Donna Cedar-Southworth who did the article. A solo show and an invitation for another solo show which will happen in March 08, was good. A couple of nice trips to Hawaii, New York, California, North Carolina, plus friends and family visiting in Virginia was fab. This is sort of a Christmas letter, but I have a bit of an aversion to Christmas letters, and am really not liking this one much, so I hope it isn't too braggy and gaggy. Hope everyone has a wonderful 08 and that we aren't too pummeled by campaign crap, though I know we will be. Perhaps all the green propaganda will fade somewhat (who can possibly understand the true issue once politicians get involved???) and that eventually the news stations will get it that we don't really need a news interrupt to hear that Sean Penn has declared his presidential endorsement or that another Spears family member is pregnant. Do we really care that Ashley whoever got a nose job or that Tony cheated on Eva or that Amanda cancelled her wedding? And how did Paris Hilton become the most photographed nobody on the planet in the first place? Who are we that we care about this crap? (Clearly I know way too much to declare myself impervious to the lure of the scandal mags, yes I buy them too at the grocery store and read them while eating m&ms after driving my plastic-bagged groceries home in my gas guzzler and drinking water from plastic bottles that, yes, I DO put in a recycle bin, at least most of the time.) I hope to do better in 08, with my mind, my body, and my green-ness. Though I still don't understand why Al Gore should win a Nobel prize, he's a politician and I simply can't trust that his motive wasn't more about increasing his personal visibility than decreasing his and our global footprints. I don't understand the carbon offset thing he invented. So . . . he gets to make the environment dirtier through his over-use as long as he pays for someone else to dirty it less? Did I get it wrong? Why is that a good thing? Shouldn't everyone try to make it less dirty, even those of us who can afford to pay someone else to be cleaner to make up for our dirtiness? It is very confusing.
I, for one, will try to be greener, to eat more vegetables, to exercise more, to buy fewer junk magazines, to read more mind-improving books, to eat fewer m&ms, to play less computer solitaire, to watch less crap on TV, and to try be nicer to people. Though, I imagine, I will be sitting here, same time next year, once again hoping to do better, to be thinner, smarter, younger, greener, more organized, more productive, but I will probably still just be flawed old me.
